Open the Old Testament and get lost fast. Long lists of names. Strange laws about mildew and oxen. Wars you don't expect in a holy book. Many people start in Genesis, push through to Leviticus, and quit somewhere around the fourteenth chapter of rules about skin diseases.
You are not alone in that. The Old Testament is long, old, and foreign to modern ears. It was written across more than a thousand years, in a culture far from ours. But it is not a different religion from the New Testament. It is the first half of one story. Skip it, and the second half stops making sense.
Here is a way through it that has helped many readers find their footing.
Start With Luke 24:27
After the resurrection, Jesus walked with two discouraged travelers on the road to Emmaus. They did not recognize him. So he did something worth noticing.
And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
Luke 24:27 (KJV)
Jesus himself read the Old Testament as a book about him. Not a code to crack, not a rulebook to survive, but a story with his own name written all through it in advance. That is the lens for everything below. When you get confused by a passage, ask what it shows you about God's character, about human need, and about the rescue that comes in Christ.
See the Big Story Before You Study the Small Pieces
The Old Testament follows one long arc. God creates a good world. People break trust with him. God calls one family, Abraham's, to bless the whole earth through them. That family becomes a nation, Israel, rescued from slavery in Egypt and given a law at Sinai. Israel gets a land, then kings, then fails badly enough to be exiled from that land. Prophets keep calling the people back and keep pointing forward to someone greater who is coming.
That is the shape. Creation, fall, calling, exodus, kingdom, exile, promise. Every book you read sits somewhere on that line. Knowing where a book sits saves you from pulling a verse out and making it say something it was never meant to say.
Learn the Covenants
A covenant is a binding promise. The Old Testament is built on a handful of them, and they stack on top of each other.
- Noah – God promises never again to destroy the earth by flood (Genesis 9).
- Abraham – God promises land, descendants, and blessing to all nations through his family (Genesis 12, 15, 17).
- Moses – At Sinai, God gives Israel the law as the terms of life together as his people (Exodus 19-24).
- David – God promises David a descendant whose kingdom will never end (2 Samuel 7).
- The New Covenant – Through Jeremiah, God promises a day when his law is written on hearts, not stone, and sins are remembered no more (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
Christians believe that new covenant arrived in Jesus. That does not erase the earlier covenants. It fulfills them. Abraham's blessing reaches the nations through Christ. David's throne belongs to Christ. The law finds its purpose in Christ. Keep that chain in mind, and the Old Testament stops looking like scattered rules and starts looking like a promise being kept.
The Law and What Changed
Jesus was direct about his relationship to the law of Moses.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
Matthew 5:17 (KJV)
Christians have long sorted the Old Testament law into categories: moral commands, like the Ten Commandments; ceremonial laws about sacrifice and ritual purity; and civil laws for governing Israel as a nation. Most Christians agree the moral law still stands, the ceremonial law pointed to Christ and finds its fulfillment in him, and the civil law was specific to ancient Israel's government.
That framework is a help, not a rule carved in stone itself. Sincere Christians still disagree on where particular commands land, especially around the Sabbath. Some keep Sunday as a day of rest and worship in the spirit of the Sabbath. Others observe a Saturday Sabbath. Others hold that Sabbath observance was part of the old covenant sign and is not required under the new. Paul addressed exactly this kind of disagreement without picking a winner.
One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
Romans 14:5 (KJV)
Questions about tithing today, dietary rules, and other Old Testament practices get the same kind of honest disagreement among faithful believers. Where Scripture does not settle the matter plainly, humility serves better than certainty.
Know the Genre Before You Decide the Meaning
Not every page of the Old Testament works the same way. Reading them all the same way causes most of the confusion.
- Law (much of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) – instructions, not narrative. Read for what they reveal about God's holiness and care for a community, not as a to-do list for today.
- Narrative (Genesis, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings) – real history, told with a purpose. A character doing something is not the same as Scripture approving it.
- Poetry and Wisdom (Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs) – emotional, poetic, sometimes deliberately one-sided. A proverb is a general truth, not an ironclad guarantee.
- Prophecy (Isaiah, Jeremiah, the minor prophets) – often addressed to a specific nation at a specific moment, mixing warning, comfort, and future hope.
- Apocalyptic (parts of Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah) – vivid symbolic imagery. Christians interpret these differently, especially around end-times details, and that disagreement is old and ongoing.
Ask, every time: what kind of writing is this, and what did the first readers understand it to mean?
Handling the Hard Passages Honestly
Some Old Testament passages are genuinely difficult. Commands of conquest. Violence. Laws that sound harsh to modern ears. Don't paper over these. Don't pretend they are not there.
A few things help. First, remember these events sit inside a specific, unrepeated moment in Israel's history, not a template for believers today. Second, read the whole counsel of Scripture, since the same Bible that records judgment also records God's patience, mercy, and long restraint. Third, remember that God's people wrestled honestly with hard things too.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 (KJV)
"Profitable" does not mean every passage reads easy. Some passages are there to be wrestled with, not simply applied. When a passage genuinely troubles you, say so. Bring it to a pastor, a trusted teacher, or careful commentary rather than guessing alone or walking away from the whole book over one chapter.
A Simple Way to Start
If the whole Old Testament feels too big, start smaller. Read Genesis for the story's foundation. Read a Psalm a day for the language of honest prayer. Read one prophet slowly, Isaiah or Hosea, with a study note or commentary nearby. Keep asking what each page shows about God and where it points toward Christ.
The Old Testament was never meant to stand alone, and it was never meant to be ignored. Read it as the first act of a story still being told, written by the same hand that wrote the last page.
